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Comment of the week

"It's the end of the first quarter, and you're already busing out the 'Max Bacon is sizzling' line? As fun a name as that is, there's not really too many directions you can go with it, especially not in the positive. 'We're at the half, and Max Bacon is killing the visitors like high sodium and cholesterol!' 'Third Quarter is up, and Max Bacon is hot like a grease fire!' 'The game is up, and if one thing's for certain, it's that Central wishes they were kosher right now ... or something ... Bacon, right?'" --pugfuggly

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Oh, man, when you get a villain bellowing “WHAT TH-” and then getting punched in the face by Mark Trail on a Monday, you know you’ve got a great week ahead of you! I have to say that if I were Mitchum I’d be pretty disappointed in the quality of henchmen I’d hired. Mark and his swamp-king ally aren’t armed, and yet this supposed thug is just standing there patiently waiting for events to unfold. “Oh, your hand gently resting over my mouth means that I can’t make any noise that might alert my boss to your presence? Sure, sounds fair!”

Slylock Fox, 2/9/15

Shady Shrew may or may not be violating the regulations about watercraft weight and propulsion for this little regatta, but I’m certainly glad he followed one rule to the letter: the rule that says that participants have to dress in some cute nautical-themed outfit. Look them all! They’re adorable!

Family Circus, 2/9/15

You know, God’s mind is infinitely above ours and it’s impossible for mere mortals to understand what brings Him joy, but I’m gonna take a stab in the dark and say it must be pretty fun to deny Jeffy’s requests, day after day after day.

I prefer to think that this episode takes place in the Slylock Fox world in which sapient animals have risen up and taken over — maybe several generations later, when the few remaining human holdouts, the Slick Smitties and Count Weirdlies, have finally gone extinct. With no humans left and none even in living memory, it’s no surprise our talking mountain goat can’t answer any questions about the vast vaguely simian face carved into the side of this cliff. George Washington’s shocked, staring expression is particularly poignant here, as he contemplates his state as a baffling final reminder of a vanished race.

Panels from The Lockhorns, 2/8/15

I got not one but two genuine laughs out of today’s multipanel Sunday Lockhorns. I’m definitely curious about the backstory to Leroy’s grim online mission in the top panel — does he have his own blog, or popular Twitter feed, which attracts Internet haters? Or does he feel compelled to wade into the comment sections of local newspaper articles or, God forbid, Wikipedia talk pages and correct people who are being wrong on the Internet? The second panel is more self-explanatory: Like Dante, Leroy and Loretta journeyed into the bowels of Hell, where God punishes in eternal agony the souls of the wicked, and got married, in a ceremony presumably conducted by actual, literal demons.

Panel from Mark Trail, 2/8/15

Wow, Mark really cares about whelk purity. “Hey Mark, look what I found on the beach!” “That’s not a true whelk, Rusty!” [slaps it out of his hand and into the sea]

Characters in long-running comic strips exist in comic-book time, a fact that I’ve had fun with as recently as yesterday, so I certainly can’t fault the actual comics artists for playing around with it. I particularly enjoy the panels here that do purport to show earth-shaking changes — look, Blondie’s employed! Dagwood used to ride the bus, like a poor person! The Facebook logo in the first panel is rendered so lovingly that I suspect this is some of kind of cross-platform promotional deal going on.

At first I assumed that Dennis the Menace was playing the same sort of game here — look, Mr. Wilson is old in that picture, becuase he’s always been old! — but the line about “before you met me” really thew me. Dennis is young, guys. Like, he’s supposed to be seven, maybe eight, tops? Mr. Wilson is an old enough old man that he’d have been an old man seven years ago. Seven years is not very long. Dennis is younger than this blog. I’m old. I’m Mr. Wilson. Oh god, I’m so very, very old

Mark Trail, 2/5/15

Man, look how sad Mitchum and Justin look! They really weren’t prepared for the emotional journey they’re on right now. You know what they say: never go into business with anyone if you’d be real broken up when you eventually have to murder each other.